Which NETGEAR devices support WDS and WPS?

What is WDS?

A Wireless Distribution System (WDS) is a system that allows access points to be wirelessly connected. WDS offers 2 modes of operation, the first and original is Wireless Bridging in which access points communicate only with each other and don’t allow wireless clients or stations to access them.  The second is Wireless Repeating in which the Access Points communicate with each other and with other the wireless clients. At this time, newer Access Points and wireless routers are capable of supporting wireless client connection while in bridge mode. WDS often referred to as repeater mode because it appears to bridge and accept wireless clients at the same time.

You can read more about Wireless Bridging in this KB article.

Note: the WDS feature is not completely specified in IEEE or Wi-Fi standards, therefore interoperability between 802.11 products of different vendors is not guaranteed.

What is WPS?

WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) was introduced and developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to help standardize and simplify ways of setting up and configuring security on a wireless network.

For more detailed description of WPS , refer to this KB article

Listed below are few NETGEAR products that have WDS or WPS support.

Related Information:

• Wireless Bridging Overview
• What is WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup)?
• How to configure WDS on WNHDE11?

N101755.asp Apr. 25, 2008